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A Snapshot Portrait of Cornwall and Redruth Reality

Why This Post is Wonderful Challenge for the Right person.

Mary Anson – Church Warden Managing Director, Anson Care Services Ltd.

I have a few things suggest to offer as well, around what we think might help attract the right person to our county and our own area in particular.  I wonder how much of a ‘challenge’ person we might like to see?  It’s my view that we need to express reality about the socio-economic area the person will be coming to, but not only that, the demographics of Cornwall.  We need someone with fire in his/her belly and a real understanding of what is under the blanket in Cornwall.  Or it could possibly someone looking for a pre-retirement post.  What we don’t want to do is mislead by assumption.

 To put things simply:  Our young people (wider Cornwall, not just ‘ours’) continue to leave the county, for Uni and/or to broaden their experiences.  Retirees still come in to this county.  That means Cornwall has one of the oldest populations in the country with more than 25% of people over the age of 65.  To expect to do wonderful things with ‘youth’ would need a deep understanding of this.  The birthrate in the UK (and other western world countries) started to fall when the Pill and the Abortion Act came along.  This means today that we have one of the smallest adult workforces in history, at a time when the baby boomer generation are aging.

 There was a new baby boom when Gordon Brown introduced tax credits and when having babies brought an income (which encouraged people to work only minimal hours or none).   Thanks to the tax credit boom we now have one of the highest populations of single parents in the country which means that we do not have the same nuclear family that we have had in the past, but also more than elsewhere.  For too many young people, having a baby has been a lifestyle option.  Those born within the mini baby boom after Gordon Brown’s child tax credit changes means that school class sizes now have significant bulges at primary level and now just entering the secondary years; while Tony Blair was able to take the credit for smaller class sizes without having to actually do anything, purely as a result of the 60s and 70s start of the falling birth rate (after the Pill etc) and class sizes falling anyway. 

 This has now been followed by restrictions on more than two children attracting child tax credits (coalition government – I think).  So the birthrate has stabilised somewhat, rather than continued to expand.

 CPR is (along with Penzance and close behind, St Austell) in the top 10 areas of deprivation in the whole of the EU.  Having said that, this is in part due to those more aspirational young people leaving Cornwall.  It’s why we had all those years of EU funding into Cornwall.

 While we have nearly full employment, we also have some of the highest levels of welfare dependency due to disability and longer term sickness.  So the full employment is amongst those well enough (willing enough at times!) to work.  Hence shortages in key areas (such as care).  In other words, in Cornwall our population is unbalanced by demographic profile, by health, and ill-health (more long term conditions including obesity and along with the ageing profile here ), and the less well educated.  (Average reading age – of those staying behind in the county – is aged 8.) 

 Although Redruth is not as affected as Penzance, Cornwall is a popular route for County Lines drug running.    Our beautiful countryside masks the reality, and the benefits system is for too many the summit of young people’s ambition (others having moved away at age 18 for higher education and other careers).

 I don’t know what, if any, you would like to see in the profile for a new Rector, and surely any applicant will do some of their own research, but we would like someone who is prepared to understand that the ‘mission’ here is different from what a surface view of Cornwall as a nice holiday destination and great place to live (all true) might lead someone to believe.  We do not want someone who ends up feeling demoralised by not expanding youth, for example.  The person must be able to understand that without insight into the demographics, the mission here is most definitely ALL age, and not all about youth.  The children of the more insightful parents will have different vision and ambitions than the children of those who are less so and the outcomes for these children are polarised by (often) lack of parental ambition or aspiration.

 We just don’t want the next Rector to feel disappointed.  The mission has to be ‘different’ here!!